The Adventures of Dust and V, Book 1: The Joker and the Thief
by Sinister Vortex
Summary: Dust is resurrected under mysterious circumstances and encounters an enigmatic new character, named V. The two of them, plus Fidget, Ahrah, and friends, go off on wonderful adventures involving other dimensions, eldritch abominations, and ridiculous circumstances involving the fate of the universe.
1. Questions

CHAPTER 1 - QUESTIONS

The next journey began in a space between spaces. A lone warrior, made of ash and honor, discovered that he was in pieces and facing the edge of the Abyss.

A platform made of marble or glass was where he found himself. He felt amorphous and fragmented, not at all like he had been at that last moment in the volcano. Though he remembered that moment, it was not immediate that other things activated in his mind. Staring down at that marble floor (strange, it seemed the floor had more directions on it than it should), he eventually remembered that his name was Dust. Then he remembered the other things: Aurora Village, Mudpot, the Sorrowing Meadow, the mountain, Ginger—

Standing in that clearing with the rain pouring down, a challenge and then two pieces smashed together—

The sudden pain in his head subsided after a moment. Then he stood and looked up. Nine marble pedestals were arranged in an impossible configuration, like the positions of the tips of a tetrahedron. Except that a tetrahedron only had four points, and this configuration had far more than that. Sitting upon the thrones of each pedestal were strange figures whose bodies were made out of angular metallic shapes which shifted erratically.

One of the figures spoke, the one which had motes of light swirling around a floating object that seemed to be its head. Dust did not hear the words verbally, for sound seemed very different in this strange realm. Instead, the words appeared in his head, like an errant thought, though Dust knew it was not his own.

_What is the secret kept inside the watchtower? The joker and the thief, what is the worth of their efforts?_

Dust felt the questions move through his thoughts and his being like a summer breeze. He knew the answers. They were on the tip of his tongue. He opened his mouth to speak—

And then he was staring at trees and grass and dirt underneath his feet. Startled, he jumped back and looked all around him. He was now standing in a forest, much like the glade in which he had awakened the first time, though he could tell that this was a different place. "How did I get here?" he shouted. One instant, he had been in that strange higher-dimensional realm, and the next he was here. And the answers which he had been about to give, those were gone from him now. _Was it a dream, _he wondered. _But it felt so real. And how did I end up here? I was in the volcano, then that realm, then here in this forest. What is going on?_

He looked up when he saw movement. There was something drifting toward him. It looked like...a sword. It was simply gliding through the woods, and there were strange symbols writ upon its blade. Dust recognized the sword immediately and sprinted forward. "Ahrah!" he called out. "Ahrah, is that you?"

"Dust," came the response. It was Ahrah! And there was something trailing after it, a small yellow creature which was flapping madly to keep up with the floating sword. Dust recognized this creature as well. He had come to know her quite will over his journey. Fidget, his loyal companion. The two came to a stop in front of Dust.

Fidget was calling after Ahrah, telling it to slow down. But she immediately stopped when she saw Dust, and put her paws to her face. She stared at Dust with eyes like saucers. "Oh my god…_Dust_, is that you?"

"Fidget," said Dust.

"You're alive," she said as a tear emerged from an eye. Then: "_Dust, you're alive!"_ She zoomed at him and stared at him right in face. "How are you alive?"

"I don't know," Dust replied. "I was in the volcano, and then I had some very strange dream, and then I ended up here." Then things occurred to him. "Fidget, how is everyone? Are they still in the volcano, or at Zeplich?"

Fidget looked at him directly in the face again. "Dust, how long do you think you've been gone?"

"Gone?" Dust asked. "I was just in the volcano. I fought Gaius…I can still feel the heat. It can't have been more than a few hours ago."

"Dust, it's been a year."

Dust's heart skipped a beat. _"What?!"_

"You've been gone a year, Dust!" Fidget shouted. "At your funeral, your spirit appeared with Ahrah. I followed you across the water, but then you disappeared. Where did you go, Dust? Where did you go?" She was almost sobbing.

"My funeral…" Dust put a hand to his head. "I don't know where I went, Fidget. I don't even remember being at the funeral…_my _funeral." He was having a hard time processing that. He turned toward Ahrah, who was just floating above the ground near him. "Ahrah, I need some answers! How has it been a year? And where did I go?"

The sword replied: "I do not know, Dust. I took you with me, to your funeral. And then we went across the sea, and at some point along that journey, you were taken. You were no longer with me. I assumed that you had gone to Elysium, and perhaps you did…for a time. Since the mission was completed, I then went back to my resting place to wait for someone to next summon me. And when I felt the call, I then came here. But I did not expect it would be you, Dust. I do not know how you are here, or why."

"Ahrah, if you are keeping something from me…" Dust started.

"I am not," the sword said calmly. "This has not happened before. For someone who has already completed their journey to end up back here…there is something strange about all of this."

"What should we do?" Dust asked.

"The same thing we did the last time you awoke," Ahrah replied. "We must explore the land and help those who need it. And by doing so, hopefully learn the circumstances of your rebirth."

"Alright," said Dust. He looked at Fidget. "Hey Fidget, are you ready for another adventure?"

She had dried her eyes, and now looked at him with a smile. "Of course I'm ready. Kill monsters and stuff…it'll be great, right?"

"Yeah!" said Dust.

Ahrah floated directly in front of Dust. "Dust, it is time for a new journey to begin. Rise, and claim the blade of Ahrah."

Dust reached out and wrapped his hand around the hilt of the sword. The feel of it was just as he remembered. He held the blade in front of him, looked at Fidget, and with that the journey began.

The three of them headed into the woods. They were traveling northward, judging by the afternoon sun. Fidget had gotten very lost while trailing Ahrah, and Ahrah insisted that he was not a map, so no one actually knew the right direction to be travelling in. North seemed as good a direction as any. Over the next hour, Dust exercised his combat moves with Fidget, and the two of them quickly regained their fluency in how to destroy things.

It was perhaps two in the afternoon, based on the sun, when the sun decided to take a lunch break and the whole forest was plunged into blackness. It went from day to night in a about two seconds. Dust instantly readied Ahrah. "What is happening?" Fidget shouted.

As if in response, a gash suddenly opened up in the sky. It looked like the sky had been torn open with a cutting knife. Black lines traced across the sky like frozen lightening, which radiated out from a central point, which looked like a great gaping hole leading into nothingness. Several dark shapes emerged from the gash and darted onto the ground. As Dust approached them, they squirmed upright, and Fidget shouted. "Ahhh, what is _that?_"

They appeared to have four limbs like a conventional creature, but that was where the conventionality ended. The creatures were hairless and apparently skinless, and also absent was any feature on their faces: no eyes or mouth or nose, just a gelatinous surface where the face should be. The same was true for the rest of their bodies: it looked as though they were just sacks of flesh encased in a roughly humanoid form. The way that they moved as they came forward made Dust think of a wax sculpture that was half melted and re-forming itself as it fell apart. Their limbs stretched impossibly as they moved.

"What are these things?" Dust shouted.

Ahrah replied: "They must be demons of some kind, but I have never seen or heard of them before. We must be careful. I sense that they are very dangerous."

Expertly, Dust slashed at the nearest creature, the sword cutting through the air like lightening. The attacks sliced into the enemy, opening red wounds in it and nearly taking off one of its arm-ish limbs. The thing staggered backward…and then all of its wounds closed up, in a matter of seconds. The gashes in it simply disappeared, and its arm re-formed onto it like an intelligent gel. And then the creature strode forward as if nothing had ever happened.

"Uh…" said Dust.

"Physical attacks will not work," said Ahrah. "We must try magic."

So Dust pulled out the Fidget. She sent out orbs of magic which Dust twirled through the air with Ahrah. The resulting explosion of orbs did much more damage than the sword had by itself. The creature was partly disintegrated by the magic blast, but it did begin regenerating. However, after repeated uses of Fidget, the thing finally gave up an evaporated in a foul-smelling mess. That left the other three creatures, shambling behind the first. The fight required great amounts of Fidgetliness, but the party did manage to fell all of the enemies. The last one was the hardest: it had learned from the deaths of its comrades, and began retreating away from Dust so that it could regenerate itself. But Dust eventually got wise to this, and made sure that he never let it get away from him.

Once the last creature was a pile of goo, the black thing in the sky disappeared like oil on water sucked into a pipette, quickly shrinking into nothing and taking its tendrils with it. Sunlight began to fall on the forest again. It looked as though nothing had ever happened.

"That was…difficult," said Dust.

Ahrah agreed. "They are indeed very resilient. Magic would seem to be necessary to defeat them."

Dust nodded. "Yet even then…"

"Dust!" Fidget shouted. "In the clearing over that hill, there's more of those things."

Dust sighed and readied Ahrah again. "Alright, let's get to it."

"Wait, we're fighting _more_ of them?" Fidget objected.

"We can't leave them for some innocent person to walk into."

"But that last fight was pretty hard."

Dust nodded. "This one probably will be also." He strode over the nearby hill. Indeed, there were enemies in the clearing below. There was no portal this time, presumably because they had already finished using it. Dust began walking downwards, Fidget behind him. Down below, the creatures were shifting and attempting to spread some kind of dark oozish substance across the ground, which radiated from their bodies like a mist and congealed on the forest floor. Dust had no idea what that substance was, but he was willing to bet that it wasn't environmentally friendly.

Suddenly, there was a flash from the sky, a pillar of light which struck in the dead center of the group of creatures. The blast knocked them back, and when the light subsided there was revealed a figure. _It's a child,_ Dust realized as he looked at this new arrival.

The boy was clad in full-body silk robes that covered everything except his head, hands, and feet. Over his right shoulder hung a mini-cape that went down to his torso, and upon it was a symbol etched in gold, which looked like a circle with some strange runes inside of it. All of his clothing was colored a deep blue, except for the symbol. The boy had large round ears and tan fur with a wisp of golden hair, and upon his face were eyes the same deep blue as his robes. The eyes had a penetrating way to them, and when the boy rose up to face the creatures before him, those eyes narrowed and gave a focus that was not often seen on such a young face.

Again Dust called out to him, but the boy seemed not to hear, instead looking only at the dark things in front of him. "What is he doing?" Dust shouted. "He'll get himself killed!" Dust had nearly reached the clearing when he suddenly ran into something. His speed was there one moment, and gone the next. It was as though the air itself was pushing back against him. "What?" he exclaimed.

Fidget had the same problem: she was flying down the path next to Dust, when suddenly she was flung in the opposite direction by some unseen force. "Whoooaa! What's going on!" she shouted.

Dust looked down at the ground and realized that there was a glowing circle around the clearing. The ring was perhaps twenty yards across and pulsating with magical light. Looking forward, he saw more circles, each inside the next, and all of them were centered around the boy. The force field was exactly set over the outermost circle. Dust raised his hand to the barrier and again felt something push back against him, as though his hand were a bar magnet and the barrier were a magnet of the same pole.

Inside the rings, the boy looked like he was concentrating. His eyes were closed and he had raised his right hand in front of him, with the palm flat and facing towards the monsters. One of the shifting black things issued a challenge to the child, but if there were any words in the taunt then they were unintelligible. It sounded like a breathy hiss. In response, the boy gave an amused smirk. He spoke "Well it's nice to be wanted, but if you guys really want me that bad, then you'll have to claim me. Sorry." The entities responded by lunging forward, and that was when things got crazy.

The boy extended his left hand, and suddenly he was holding a rod of light. It looked like lightening, except smooth, and there were colors shooting up and down its length: yellow, blue, indigo, green…the colors one might find on a rainbow. And then, in one smooth motion, the boy used the blade of light to draw a circle in the air. He twirled the blade in a circle, and along the path the tip traveled, a line of light simply hung in the air. The floating circle of light was facing the monsters, and after he had completed making it, the boy then used his light blade to draw some kind of symbol within the ring. It looked similar to the one on his minicape, but not quite the same. He painted the symbol in three or four smooth strokes, and the blade danced like a firecracker as he worked. Once the symbol was complete, the boy took his right palm and made a motion with it into the symbol, as though he were trying to push the symbol into the enemy. Perhaps he was. The area directly in front of the symbol ring exploded into a cylinder of light, and the creatures that had been advancing on the boy were suddenly burning, shrieking, and then disintegrating into shadowy filaments that vanished into nothing over the next few seconds. None of the creatures regenerated: whatever magic the boy had used prevented them from coming back.

"Gets 'em every time!" the boy muttered loudly. The blade of light disappeared back into his left hand. Then the boy raised his right palm again and waved it along the rings of light on the ground. The concentric circles dimmed and then vanished.

Dust realized that he could now move into the clearing. He didn't feel the unseen force pushing back against him anymore. So he strode forward cautiously until he reached the blue-clad figure. "Who are you?"

At the sound of his voice, the boy suddenly shot across the clearing. It looked like he was gliding: his feet never left the ground, and there was something glowing underneath him. The boy was now facing Dust, and had his right palm raised, with his left coiled over his head, as if he were preparing to summon his sword again. The whole thing was one smooth motion that took less than a second: one instant the boy was in the center of the clearing, and in the next instant he was ten yards away in defensive posture. "Who are _you?_" the boy demanded.

Dust raised his own hand. "I'm Dust," he explained. He motioned to Fidget. "And this is Fidget."

"It's _who?"_

"Fidget," Dust said again.

"Hello," said Fidget while waving.

The boy had that penetrating look again. He seemed to be in deep thought. "Your name is Fidget? That seems very unlikely."

"Well, that's my name," said Fidget.

The boy looked at her. "Is that what it says on your birth certificate? Fidget?"

"Enough about my name," said Fidget. "What's yours?"

The boy lowered his arms and stood up straight. The air seemed to dim around him, as if something in it had been slightly glowing up until the last moment. "I'm V," he stated.

"V?" Dust asked. "Nice to meet you, V. Does that stand for anything?"

"Not really," the boy replied.

"Your name is the letter V?" Fidget asked.

"Yeah," said V.

"Is that actually your real name?"

"It's better than Fidget."

"So, where are you from?" Dust asked. "I've never seen or heard of anyone fighting like that."

"I'm from Mir," the boy said, as if that explained everything. "I'm a Mirish Knight."

Dust had never heard of a place called Mir. And there was the other detail. "A knight? Aren't you a bit young to be a knight? How old are you, seven?"

"I'm ten!" the boy shot back. That didn't improve the boy's case a great deal, but looking at him, Dust realized V actually did look like a ten-year-old. The proportions were all about right for that age, but everything was smaller. V's head only came up to Dust's waist. V might actually be just a tiny ten-year-old.

Fidget asked: "And where is Mir? I've never heard of a place like that."

"It's an island," the boy replied. "And it's very reclusive, which is probably why you've never heard of it. And sometimes boys get to be knights."

"I see," said Dust.

The boy continued: "Anyways, I happened to be traveling, and I came upon some of those Dreadform, and I followed them to this realm, and then I met you guys."

"Dreadform?" Dust asked. "Is that what you call those creatures you just fought?"

The boy nodded. "Yup."

"And you say you followed them to _this realm_ as though you are from another realm."

The boy nodded again. "Yeah. Is that not self evident?"

"Is Mir in this other realm?"

"It's in one of them. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Dust asked.

"Well, it moves around a lot. Sometimes Mir is within a realm, other times it's in hyperspace. It kinda depends on the moment, really."

"Didn't you say Mir is an island?" Fidget asked. "Since when can islands move?"

"Is there a rule that says they can't?" the boy shot back. "Mir has always done that." He looked back and forth between the two of them. "So, where are you guys from, anyways?"

Since V had given them some about himself, Dust decided that it was only fair to properly introduce himself and Fidget. So he spent the next few minutes telling him about everything that had happened up until the fight in the volcano, which had been the last thing Dust remembered before waking up in this forest. He almost mentioned the dream, but something stopped him. He couldn't quite bring himself to talk about it. It was just a dream, after all.

V seemed to find the story quite interesting. "So you're, like, two souls combined into one. A Sen Mithrarin? Is that what you're called? I think Mirish arts might have something similar, but by a different name. It's not done that commonly, though. I only heard about that kind of thing in passing."

"Mir has _what?"_ Dust almost shouted. His surprise was plain.

V crossed his arms. "Well, these days Mir uses much more sophisticated magic. Usually there are several souls that are reincarnated into the same body. Most Mirmen are that way. That's what I am, in fact. I don't know the names of all my components, though. Anyways, some fifty thousand years ago or so, it was discovered that the experience of a fallen warrior could be preserved by having them reincarnate into a new body, along with several other souls as well. There's some pretty hardcore magic involved, though. It's more than just two souls duct taped together like you."

Dust was too fascinated to be insulted. It was several moments before he had processed enough of the information to say something. "So, these souls reincarnated to make a new Mirish person…is that the reason why children are allowed to become knights? Because they already have the experience from their…what did you call it…_components?_"

V nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

Dust suddenly felt the magical pull of his sword Ahrah. The sword was trying to tell him something. "Um, excuse me, V. I'll be right back." He walked back to the center of the clearing. Fidget followed behind him. "What is it, Ahrah?"

His sword left his hand and floated up in front of him. "Dust, that boy is very important. I have never before encountered the magicks he uses, and the same goes for the creatures he calls the Dreadform. I believe that this V may be our best chance at defeating the Dreadform and whoever is controlling them."

"I see," said Dust. "V is the person we were meant to find here, isn't he?"

"That must be the case," said Ahrah.

Fidget put in: "Plus, the kid has a rainbow lightsaber. A _rainbow lightsaber_, Dust! We need him in our party. Like, now!"

Dust nodded. "Agreed. By the way, Ahrah, do you know if the blade that boy wields is one of the Blades of Elysium? Elder Grey-Eyes mentioned that there are five of them."

"It is not," said Ahrah. "I would know if we were in the presence of another Elysium Blade. The magic of V's weapon is entirely different. As with everything else about him, I have never seen or heard of his powers. He truly is from another realm."

Dust decided: "We should stick with him and press on through this forest. We have to deal with these…Dreadform, and V seems to have a handle on how to do it. Once we get to the nearest village, wherever that happens to be, then we can figure out what to do about this situation…and hopefully learn where exactly we are."

"Good plan." V was standing right behind Dust. He had been listening to the entire conversation.

"Hello V," said Dust.

V looked up at him bluely. "Are we just going to stand around, or go off and do stuff?"

"Let's do stuff," Fidget suggested.

"Alright," said Dust. With that, the party headed through the clearing and back into the forest, in a direction that they hoped had a village somewhere along it.


	2. A Boy and His Spaceship

CHAPTER 2 – A BOY AND HIS SPACESHIP

The party continued northward. The forest seemed a bit less dense after an hour or so, but Dust didn't know if that was because they were nearing an edge, or just another clearing. The boy V followed with a pace that was measured and quick, which was just fine with Dust, who usually moved rather fast anyways. It was while they had briefly stopped for a rest, that the boy suggested they should all help him look for his spaceship.

"Your what?" Dust asked.

"My spaceship," said V. "That's how I got here. I was ejected from it just before I entered this dimension."

"You have a _spaceship?_" Fidget asked. "And just where would this spaceship be, exactly?"

V put a hand to his chin. "Well, I was separated from it while in hyperspace, so it could still be there. But if the autopilot kicked in, then the ship might have come into this dimension somewhere."

Fidget was not quite convinced. "V…" she said, "I like that you kill demons by drawing lines in the air and stuff, but I'm having a little trouble believing that you have a _spaceship_. Are you absolutely sure there aren't some parents of yours waiting for you somewhere?"

V shot her a look that could have cut through a mountain. "_I am a knight of Mir_," he said tersely.

"Okay…sorry I asked." She looked at Dust. "What do you think? Should we look for this spaceship of his?"

"I don't know what a spaceship is," said Dust. He looked at V. "Is it like a large boat or something? Did you leave a large boat in this hyper-place?"

V put his palm to his face. The next couple of minutes were spent with V trying to explain to Dust what a spaceship was. After V had given several speeches, the main thing Dust took away was that V was a very smart little boy who was very much not from this world. He managed to gather that spaceships were ships that traveled between worlds by flying very very far above the ground. That part actually started making sense. But then V started talking about their universe being a three-dimensional "manifold" (whatever that was) that was "immersed" in a nine-dimensional space called the Bulk, which was also this hyperplace. Dust was starting to not follow things very well. He briefly wondered how Fidget knew what a spaceship was. It probably had something to do with her penchant for breaking the fourth wall every other minute.

It was somewhere around the point where V was talking about nine-dimensional fluids which would crystallize when their motion was confined to a three-dimensional manifold, that Dust held up his hand and announced that the conversation had gone as far as it could. V seemed like he really needed to find this spaceship of his, so Dust figured that they should probably start doing that. "V, do you have any idea where this spaceship would be, if it is in this world?"

V crossed his arms. "Probably somewhere near where I came in. But that's all I know. Unless…" He looked at Dust. "Do you have a compass?"

"A compass?" Dust scanned his inventory. "No, sorry." The contents of his original inventory were probably in the volcano, most likely melted in lava. All he had in it now were the few items he come upon in the forest since waking up, mostly fruit and other edibles.

"That's fine," said V. "I can make do." From his own inventory, he pulled out a small filament of metal. Then he leaned down to a nearby pool of water and filled his hands with it. The metal filament rotated once it was on the surface of the water. V looked at it for a moment, then said "It's pointing true north. Dangit."

"Is that bad?" Dust asked. "I thought a compass is supposed to point north."

V replied: "If my ship were nearby, then its electromagnetic field would have messed with the needle. But that's not happening. It must still be in hyperspace."

"So what now?" Dust asked him.

V stood up. "I guess I help you guys find a village, then. I need to figure out what to do about the Dreadform problem anyways. So yeah, I guess I'll stick with you for awhile." He looked at Dust. "Oh, by the way, can I see your sword?"

"Ahrah?" Before Dust knew what the boy was doing, V had walked over and tapped Ahrah on the tip with his finger. At his touch, the sword suddenly glowed with a magical light. "Woah, what is this?"

V explained: "There, I just gave Ahrah the same magic I use to fight Dreadform. You shouldn't have a problem with them regenerating now."

"The boy has done something to me," said Ahrah. "I do feel slightly more powerful. I believe that V has given my attacks the ability to stop these Dreadfrom from healing their wounds. They should now be much easier for us to vanquish."

"That's great," Dust replied. "That's very helpful. Thank you."

Fidget, being the Guardian of the Sword, had a slightly less genial reaction. She flew between Dust and V, floating directly between the boy and the sword. "Woah there, V!" she exclaimed. "What did you just do to the sword?"

"Like I said," V replied. "I upgraded it to be able to fight Dreadform."

"V," she said while looking him in the eye. "I am the Sword Guardian. You do not make changes to the sword without consulting me first…ever!"

"Is that so?" said V.

"Yes," said Fidget, her head held high.

"Are you an expert on Blades of Elysium, then?" V asked her.

"I am the Sword Guardian."

"That is not what I asked," said V. "You're not at all familiar with the magicks that power the sword, are you?"

"Are _you?_" she shot back.

"I have worked on things very similar to this while on Mir," V answered. "So yes, I have a good idea of how Ahrah works. I've never actually made one from scratch before, but I have worked with others while they were doing so. So I am very familiar with Ahrah's magic. I saw something on the sword that could be improved, and then I improved it."

Fidget shook her little head. "V, you can't just go around making changes to talking swords willy-nilly. You didn't even ask Ahrah if he wanted the change."

"But he approved of the change," said V. "We all just heard him."

"But you didn't ask first!" said Fidget. "How would you like it if someone came up to you and just changed you without asking?"

"If it was an upgrade change, then I would think that person is awesome."

Fidget sighed. "You're missing the point."

Dust stepped in. "Fidget," he said calmly. "It's fine, really. He helped out. We can fight the Dreadform a lot more easily now. I'm not actually sure we would last much longer without this ability to stop them from regenerating."

Fidget sighed. "Alright, V. I'll let it go this time. Thanks for helping and stuff. But next time you think of changing Ahrah, I really need you ask me first, okay?"

"Even if you might say no?"

"_Especially_ if I might say no!"

V considered a moment, then reluctantly said "Okay."

With that, the party began moving northward again. They encountered another group of Dreadform a few miles further on. It was much the same fare as the earlier encounters: a horrifying portal made the sky go dark, and then the creatures themselves popped out. But the fight was very easy this time. The Dreadform could no longer heal their wounds, and went down much faster. And since Dust and V were working together, the ease of the battle was compounded: V drew glowing lines in the air with his glowing rainbow sword which somehow created devastating area-effect attacks, and Dust used Ahrah and Fidget to wear down enemies with slash attacks and whirlwind magic orbs. The battle probably didn't last more than thirty seconds.

After it was all over and the sky had returned to its late afternoon normalcy, V walked over to Dust and looked up at him. "That stuff you do with Fidget where you make those balls of light go everywhere…that's interesting."

Dust replied: "Well, the things I've seen you do are also pretty interesting, V."

V nodded. "I can see why you might think that. Anyways, I guess I'm mostly interested in that twirly thing you do with Ahrah."

"That's called Dust Storm," said Dust.

"I'm guessing you're the one who named it," said V.

Dust shook his hat. "Actually, Ahrah came up with it. Either that, or it was already called that since before my time. I'm not sure."

"Really?" said V. "How do you do it?"

Dust took Ahrah in his hand and have him a twirl. Then he did it a second time, with Fidget contributing a few magic orbs to show off the magnified attack, an explosion of orbs catalyzed by the Dust Storm. V watched with great interest. After the demonstration, V summoned his own sword, which appeared impossibly from his empty left hand, and did the twirl the way that Dust had. It took him a few tries to get it down, but he soon did. Although instead of a whirlwind, V's sword made a glowing disk of light which hovered in the air for some seconds after he was done moving the blade.

"I wonder if I could try it with Fidget now," V suggested.

"Um, all right," said Fidget.

Fidget came over and V began performing his version of Dust Storm, which created a swirling vortex of glowing lines that spiraled into the air. "Okay Fidget, let's do this!" V exclaimed. "Dust can make the orbs multiply rapidly with his Dust Storm. So I wonder what the orbs will do when they enter this thing." He was maintaining the vortex of glowing lines in a constant pattern.

"Let's see," said Fidget. She shot an orb into the vortex.

A beam of light shot out of the vortex and illuminated the forest like a second sun. Then there was a tremendous BANG which was followed a second later by a thunderous roar of sound. The entire forest shook, and some of the larger older trees came crashing down.

Dust found himself lying face up on the ground. He couldn't hear anything, and for a moment he was unsure of where he was. Then he started getting his awareness back, and some of his auditory sense along with it. His hat had landed five yards behind him, and was slightly singed around the edges, but otherwise intact. As he set the hat back on his head, Dust looked up at the sky and saw a large mushroom shaped cloud rising above the forest. Underneath the cloud was a bowl-shaped crater. The crater was roughly twenty yards across and had thrown plants and dirt and rocks in every direction. On a tree at the edge of the crater, which had been partly disintegrated by the explosion, a squirrel was trembling while clinging shakily to a branch and crapping itself.

Dust looked at the scene for a moment in shock. Then something in his mind clicked, and he immediately started looking for V and Fidget frantically. He darted around the freshly-made clearing, calling their names. He soon found them, exactly where they had been just before the explosion. Fidget was fine…but V was lying on the ground, not moving. Dust rushed over. "Is he hurt?"

"I don't know," said Fidget. "After the explosion, he just suddenly collapsed." She was looking down at V with concern, her eyes wide. "What's wrong with him? Is he gonna be okay?"

Dust took V by the shoulders and shook him. The boy groaned and his eyes fluttered, but he remained unconscious. "I wonder if it's shock…" Dust said under his breath.

The sword Ahrah floated up from Dust and moved over the boy, as if it were looking at him. Then the sword spoke: "Dust, it is not shock."

"No? Well then…what's wrong with him?" Dust asked. "I don't see any wounds on him."

Ahrah replied: "The boy has used up all of his magical energy performing this latest move. Dust, do you remember what I once told you, about the dangers of using the Dust Storm attack for too long?"

"Yes," said Dust. "If I use it for too long without resting, then it will start to damage me. But what does…wait, you're saying that something similar has happened to V, aren't you?"

"I am," said Ahrah. "V's magic and Fidget's magic synchronize very well together. Too well, in fact. When V combined his magic with that of Fidget, the channel of power was so great that it drained him, much like a small battery in a high-voltage circuit. Once all of his stamina was expended, the move must have started taking from his life force as well."

"His life force!" Dust exclaimed.

"Do not be alarmed," Ahrah said calmly. "The boy will fully recover, so long as he has plenty of rest and nourishment. He is very fortunate: if his attack had been any more powerful, then he may very well have died. V is very young and inexperienced. He must not have been aware of the dangers of what he was doing. The boy has yet to learn caution and restraint. I believe this may be one of the reasons fate has brought him to us."

"Yes. We will need to keep a close eye on him from now on," said Dust. "And Fidget, I think it best that V not use you in his attacks from now on, not until he has learned to do it safely."

Fidget had her paws to her mouth and her eyes were the size of her face. "Dust, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do this to him."

Dust looked at her. "What? No, Fidget. It's not your fault. You didn't know. None of us did. Ahrah said that V will be fine. It's okay. We just need to keep an eye on him, is all. And make sure he doesn't over-exert himself. Can you do that?"

Fidget nodded. "Yeah, I can, Dust."

"All right," said Dust.

The party made camp at the spot where they were. It was starting to get dark, and they weren't going to do any more trekking while V was in his current condition. Dust set up a makeshift tent out of branches and leaves while Fidget gathered wood for a fire, and foodstuffs from the nearby fruit trees. It was a few hours later that V finally stirred, much to the relief of the others. They fed him some fruit with nuts, and after that he seemed to perk up quite a bit. It was then that Dust and Ahrah had a conversation with him about what had happened.

"I guess I need to be a lot more careful around Fidget, then," said V.

"You absolutely do," Dust concurred. "For the time being, I will be the only one to use Fidget. We need to make sure that this doesn't happen again."

V nodded. "Right. Good plan." He seemed deep in thought for a moment. "So…what now? Did you find a village yet?"

Dust shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. I haven't done any exploring since the explosion. We will start moving again in the morning, once you've had more rest."

The two of them got up and joined Fidget by the fire. She had a branch with acorns stuck on it, and was holding the branch over the fire. "Hey, V. How're you doing? Feeling better?"

"I am," V replied.

Fidget looked at him. "Hey, sorry about nearly killing you earlier. I really didn't mean for that to happen."

"It's fine," said V. "Shit happens." V reached into his inventory and pulled out some sausages.

"I didn't know you had those," said Fidget. "What other stuff is in that inventory of yours?"

V looked at the sausages. "Yeah, I forgot I had these. I always like to keep well stocked when travelling, especially since you never know what you'll be able to find while abroad." He looked at Fidget and saw what she was doing with the branch of roasting acorns. Then he found a similarly shaped branch, impaled the sausages on its tips, and held it over the flames like Fidget was doing.

Fidget looked at V's contraption, then flew up and left for a moment, before returning with a larger branch, which she decorated with sausages and acorns like some eccentric Christmas tree. This branch was so large that when she set it one over the fire, it covered nearly all the flames.

V took one look at Fidget's new branch, then went away and retrieved a large thin log, taller than he was, which he levitated through the air using his Mirish magic. He had covered the log's surface with sausages, dozens of them, which made the log look like it had a second pinkish skin. The levitated log hovered above the fire and was slowly rotating along its length.

Dust sighed. "V, you shouldn't be exerting yourself."

"I'm not," said V. "Just levitating something, is all."

"V's cheating," Fidget complained. "I can't levitate stuff!"

Dust stood up, took the log off the fire, and set it stumpwise on the ground. "V, can you please not use any powers until tomorrow? You really need to be regaining your strength."

V sighed. "Fine, fine." He picked up the branch he had been using before and set it back over the fire.

"Nice branch," Fidget chided, which caused V to grumble something.

Dust got up and strode away for a moment. There was the sound of his sword slashing something with quick precise strokes. When Dust returned, he was holding a small tree, which was decorated with nearly a hundred sausages. Though tiny for a tree, it was still far larger than V's log had been, and when Dust held it over the fire, it left no room for the branches of V or Fidget. "I win. Game over," Dust declared.

The party sat in silence around the fire for a moment. Then V asked: "So, will we continue heading north tomorrow?"

"I think so," said Dust. "While I was getting materials for the tent, I saw something on the horizon that I think might have been smoke from a settlement. It's definitely worth checking out."

"Sounds like a plan," said V. He looked at Dust's roasting tree with annoyed envy, then got up and went in the tent to get some rest.


	3. The Dark Pantheon, Over Sausages

3 – THE DARK PANTHEON, OVER SAUSAGES

Fidget awoke the next morning just after break of dawn, and discovered that both V and Dust had already risen and left the tent. She flew out the entrance, and found the two of them sitting around the extinguished campfire, breaking their fasts on the ungodly number of sausages that had been cooked the night previous.

Fidgit looked at Dust, a tall figure in teal robes with a large hat. She was still having a hard time believing he was back. For a moment just before she had opened her eyes, when she was still in the space between slumber and wakefulness, she had been afraid that she had dreamt the events of the previous day. Afraid that Dust was still gone, vanished in the volcano. Then her eyes had opened, looked up at the tent that Dust had made some hours ago, and with elation she had realized that _yes_, he actually was back!

The last year had been a hard one. Fidget had always been a bit of an outcast by her people. She talked too much, couldn't focus, was often considered lazy even though she tried her hardest at tasks, and was frequently ridiculed for spending too much time in her own head. And after she had left with Ahrah and been gone for several days, nearly everyone in her tribe had blamed her for absconding with the sword. No one had believed her about her adventures with Dust. They thought she was just "using her overactive imagination again." The tribe's elders had been especially strict, punishing Fidget for her absence by restricting her to only the most menial duties. She had barely even been allowed to look at Ahrah anymore.

Yesterday morning, she had flown over to the spot in the road where Ahrah was resting. Another nimbat had had the guard shift then, a male named Wedge. He was young and kindly, and had looked at her with the sadness reserved for those he thought needed his pity. He had gently informed her that she was not to come near the sword, as no one trusted her to be around it since her weeklong absence. She had come as close as she was allowed, and had started thinking about what to say to Ahrah. The sword would not respond, of course. It hadn't said or done anything in a year. But she needed to talk to it anyways, for her own sake. Wedge was one of the few nimbats who let her talk to Ahrah. He had an understanding to him that most nimbats lacked.

Fidgit had still been thinking about what to say, when Ahrah had suddenly risen from the ground, Wedge plopping off of it like a stunned sack of potatoes, and the sword had just started moving down the road, as though it had no care in the world. Wedge just sat there on the ground, staring at the moving sword with a look of surprise and perplexion on his face. Fidgit had seized the moment and flown after Ahrah as fast as she could. She remembered shouting back at Wedge "Gotta go. Byyyeeeeee!" She had followed Ahrah into the forest for some hours, before she had finally been reunited with Dust.

Now she looked at him eating sausages, and thanked God or the gods or whoever that they had brought him back. Since Dust was in the middle of a conversation, she would normally have tried to put in her two bits. But at the moment, she was still getting used to the fact that Dust was alive at all. So she sat outside the tent entrance, listening. Sitting patiently was not something that she had ever been good at, but even Fidget did need moments of introspection from time to time, and especially when processing the events of the last day.

"I think we might have outdone ourselves last night, V," said Dust. "By my count, we cooked about a hundred and fifty sausages. That will keep us supplied for quite some time. V, how did you come upon that many sausages, anyways?"

V shrugged. Speaking with half of his mouth taken up by a sausage, he stated: "Just before I left Mir, I stocked up my inventory pretty good. My inventory is actually a pocket universe made out of curved space-time, so there's no limit to how much stuff I can cram in there."

"A pocket universe? You are full of surprises, V."

V took a small device out of his robes and held it up. It looked like a glass cylinder with some kind of cyan colored light swirling around in it. "Yeah, this thing is what generates the pocket universe. I press a button here…" A small screen displayed on one side of the device. "And then I just select what I want taken out." V touched a place on the screen, and a sausage materialized out of thin air directly over the device.

"Interesting," said Dust. "But I don't think we need more sausages right now, V."

"I know. I'm just demonstrating." V took the sausage and held it above the top of the device, and it vanished back into his inventory.

Fidget was reminded of the time, a year ago, when Dust had tried to cram all six of Old Gappy's lost sheep into his own inventory and somehow managed to pull it off. While she didn't think Dust's inventory was a pocket universe, there was still clearly some magic stuff going on with it.

Dust shifted his posture on the stump he was sitting on. "V, I'm a little curious as to how and why you left Mir."

V shrugged again. "Well, I had stuff to do outside the city, so I got in one of the scout shuttles and just…headed out. And not long after that, I was ambushed by Dreadform, had to eject, and then ended up in this world."

It was then that Dust noticed Fidget sitting outside the tent, listening to their conversation. "Morning Fidget," he said to her. "Have some sausage. We've got tons of them. Seriously."

"Oh, thank you." Fidget flew over and grabbed a big pile of sausages, more than was physically possible to fit inside herself, then sat down again and started attempting to do exactly that. She was finding the conversation between Dust and V to be very interesting, and hoped that she hadn't interrupted it. Of course, she was rather renound for being an interrupter of things, but she was willing to make an exception this time.

Fortunately, the conversation did continue. Dust finished his current sausage, then looked back at V. "You stole it, didn't you?"

V twitched and looked quickly at Dust. "Uh…what?"

"The scout shuttle," Dust elaborated. "You stole it and ran off."

V shifted his posture on the stump he was sitting on. "Well, I…uh…needed it for things and stuff, so I took it."

Dust sighed. "V, I'm not interrogating you or anything. I just happen to know when someone is not being completely honest. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to send you back to Mir or anything. All I want is for you to be straight with me."

V crossed his arms. "I borrowed it, if you must know. I'll bring it back. Sometime. Once I find it, that is."

Since that was clearly the most V was willing to say on the topic, Dust decided to change the subject. "So what exactly are these Dreadform, anyways?"

V thought a moment, considering how to explain. His left paw was fisted and resting on his chin, his thinking posture. After a moment, he replied: "The Dreadform are beings created for the purpose of terraforming a world and changing its ecology so as to be suitable for habitation by extradimensional entities called the Scion."

Fidget attempted to unpack that sentence, and was not particularly successful. "Sorry, could you maybe run that by me again?" Her words came out slurred because her cheeks were full of sausages.

"Hm?" said V. "What part?"

"Uh…everything." Fidget responded.

V sighed. "So, look, there's this order of extremely powerful beings that lives in hyperspace, an order called the Scion. The Scion are obsessed with law and order, and they believe that all life should be dominated and controlled, to protect life from free will, which they see as chaos. The Scion are known to be extremely ruthless whenever they encounter civilizations that step outside that narrow order, and sometimes the Scion will go so far as to remove all life from that world and then use the planet for their own ends."

"Um," Fidget interjected again. "How is removing all life from a world the same as protecting it from chaos? I don't really see the connection."

V was struggling to explain. "Well, it isn't the same. The Scion see themselves as arbiters of order, and when they have a difficult time exacting that order on some world, they sometimes decide that it's better to scrap the world and start it over again from scratch. And that is the purpose of the Dreadform. The Dreadform are minions of the Scion, whose job it is to change a planet's ecology into something more befitting of the Scion's constructs."

Dust put in: "One of the times we encountered the Dreadform, we saw them trying to spread some dark substance on the forest. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?"

V nodded. "That's the first stage of terraforming. It's very good that they were stopped from doing that. Anyways, the Scion have been up to these kinds of things, subjugating civilizations and so forth, for millions of years."

Fidget gagged on a sausage. _"Millions?"_she squeaked. "These Scion are super old!"

"Yeah, they are," V agreed. "The order of Mir, my order, was created to fight the Scion. Mir is not quite as old, only about two hundred millennia or so…" He said this as though it was last year. "…and in that time, they have been training warriors like myself and perfecting their art of reincarnating fallen warriors to preserve their experience. Mir exists to defend the realms against the Scion, and also against anything else that might threaten the existence of innocent civilizations."

"I see," said Dust. "There is one thing that bothers me: the fact that the Dreadform are in this world, does that mean that these Scion are planning to terraform it?"

V sighed. "Unfortunately…yes."

Fidget gasped. "They're trying to take over this planet?!"

V stated: "I don't know what the Scion want with this place. To my knowledge, there are no civilizations here which are advanced enough to be able to offend the Scion. But they obviously want _something_. And I'm hoping that if we can find that something, we can also find a way to save this realm."

Dust sighed and stood up. "I must have been resurrected to help deal with these Scion. Looks like the world needs me again." He looked at the sky for a moment. "I just hope…after this is all over, that I'm allowed to actually live. I don't want to die again at the end of this, and then just end up getting resurrected the next time some danger comes around. I want a life."

Fidget flew up and hovered close to him. "Oh, Dust…"

Dust sat back down. "I'm alright, Fidget. Adventuring isn't so bad. I actually really enjoyed it, the first time I journeyed with you. I just want my existence to be about more than just that."

"I understand," she said.

Dust was thinking, his face sullen under his hat for a few moments. Then he stood up again and stated: "Okay guys, the first order of business is to travel to that nearby settlement, and see if they know where we are. And then we need to head to Aurora Village."

V looked at him. "Aurora Village…that's the place where you helped all those people a year ago, isn't it?"

"It is," said Dust. "And there are people there who I need to see. Ginger…" The thought of her brought a smile to his face.

"Yes, Ginger," said Fidget. "She'll be very happy to know that you're alive."

"I must see her," Dust said with determination. "And the others, of course. Moska, Avgustin, Corbin…" Something occurred to Dust, and he suddenly looked down at Ahrah, the sword resting by his side. "Ahrah, how is it that nowhere we've walked through in the last day looks familiar? Fidget said she followed you for only a few hours before finding me, so we can't possibly be that far from the Glade. But I don't recognize anything we've come upon since my resurrection."

Ahrah responded. "Around the place where you re-entered this world, I sensed some strange magic. I am not sure if it was magic in the traditional sense, but it seemed as though space was being stretched and distorted. It was happening over large scales around us, over many miles, so it is not likely that Fidget would have noticed it herself. But it felt as though the forest was being re-assembled, like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. It was during this that we must have been transported to wherever we are now."

V was looking at the sword with great interest. "You're saying that the fabric of space was being manipulated around the place where Dust awoke, and you guys must have gotten caught up in it. I wonder if the Dreadform had something to do with that. Their terraforming sometimes will distort space-time. But this doesn't sound quite the same…"

Dust was thinking aloud to himself. "All this strangeness since these Dreadform came. We really need to figure out where we are. We've got to get to that settlement." He handed the rest of the sausages to V, who put them away in the inventory, and then Dust began striding northward, around the crater and toward the apparent settlement in the distance. "Let's go, guys. We've spent long enough talking. Time for some doing."

Fidget followed closely behind him. "Do you actually think we can stop these Scion?" she asked him.

"I don't know, Fidget. I really don't know. But we've got to try. I think that V might be our best hope. He's the only one among us who knows anything about them."

Fidget looked back and saw that V was about twenty yards behind them. To Dust, she said: "It sounds like he ran away from home."

"That he did," Dust agreed. "And he seems to be very powerful, but also very careless. We really need to watch out for him. Until he learns to use his powers, I think he might be just as much a danger to himself as he is to enemies."

"Poor little guy…" Fidget murmured. The party walked for a couple of minutes in silence, just thinking. Dust and Fidget were digesting all the information they had learned from V about the Scion, the Dreadform, and Mir. And V, being his usual introverted self, was thinking about whatever a runaway Mirish Knight usually thought about.

Fidget flew above the treetops for a moment, scanning the terrain. Then she came back down to Dust and informed him: "It looks like this settlement is still a few miles out. Seems to be just a small village. Hopefully we can get there by midday, maybe get something to eat."

"Hungry already?" Dust asked. "You had, like, twenty sausages for breakfast."

Fidget nodded. "Yes, but I anticipate that I will be hungry again soon. A nimbat is powered by more things than just sausages, after all."

"Yes, I suppose that is true," Dust concurred.

"So, is the plan that we get to this place, ask directions to Aurora, and then head out again?"

"Pretty much," said Dust. "There are people in Aurora that I care about. I really need to get back to them."

The party steadily headed towards the smoke tower which marked the nearby village. Fidget was hoping that there weren't any surprises waiting for them. She believed that after the Dreadform, she had truly seen everything. She had no way of knowing just how wrong she was.


	4. The Unicorn Disaster

4 – THE UNICORN DISASTER

When a meth-addicted squirrel had been set loose in the Grand Archives, that was probably the moment when Master Tarenvien had finally exhausted his patience with V. "It's not my fault," V had tried to explain. "I've never taken care of a squirrel before. It was just jumping around in its cage and eating nuts and things." It had been previously explained to V that this was what squirrels normally did. But V had believed that squirrels were capable of more. He had wanted to expand the squirrel's consciousness. So V had taken the cage to the Grand Archives, borrowed several books about how to teach relativity theory, and then tried to apply these concepts to the squirrel in the hopes that it would become enlightened.

It hadn't worked.

The squirrel had not changed its behavior at all, and after several hours of attempted teaching, V was seriously beginning to question the squirrel's ability to grasp space-time curvature tensors. But then V had had one final idea. Perhaps if he used drugs as an aid to propel the squirrel's mind into a heightened level of consciousness, then it would be able to grasp the deeper meanings of physics. So V had stolen some methamphetamines from the medical ward and mixed them in the squirrel's food.

Things had not gone as V had intended. The squirrel had entered a state which was generally referred to in the medical community as Going Apeshit. Then one thing had led to another, and somehow the squirrel had burst free of the cage in a burst of acorns. The unleashed rodent had created a whirlwind of shredded paper and shattered data crystals that the Grand Archives had not seen in centuries, and would no doubt be talked about for centuries to come. It had taken ten students and three of the Masters, including the Lord Archivist Tarenvien himself, to subdue the meth-crazed squirrel.

V had never understood why Tarenvien had chosen to take the ordeal so personally. Yet he had. V had been banned from the Grand Archives for a decade because of the fiasco. A decade! That was as long as he had been in existence! V had been left wondering what he could have done differently. Perhaps he should have given the squirrel marijuana instead of meth. It seemed like a much surer choice, now that he thought about it. Or maybe cocaine. Or perhaps less meth. Yet, these were not the lessons Tarenvien had been hoping V would learn, and the Lord Archivist had even threatened to up V's suspension to twenty years if he even thought about doing something like that again.

V had left that meeting in quite a huff, and soon after had come up with the idea of hijacking Tarenvien's pleasure yacht, a fifty meter long transport shuttle called the _Adventurer _that had been decked out with all kinds of recreational facilities. V had been meaning to leave Mir and go off on adventures for awhile now. The Masters hadn't let him, saying he was far too young and inexperienced. But being banned from the Grand Archives was the final straw. Tarenvien had taken the Grand Archives away from V, so V decided to take Tarenvien's yacht away from him.

He had thought about letting Master Anai know before he set off. She had always been V's favorite of the masters, deep and understanding when compared to Tarenvien's rigid traditionalism. But Anai was a Master, and she would have tried to stop him if she had known what he was about to do. So without goodbyes, V had snuck into the landing bay, hacked his way past the _Adventurer's _excuse for security, and then taken off. Mir's security forces had been alerted when the yacht left the bay, but the yacht was quick and nimble, and V had jumped into hyperspace long before Mir got its shields up.

He had traveled in hyperspace for an hour or so, with no real destination in mind. Then the yacht had been attacked by Dreadform. V couldn't imagine what minions of the Scion were doing so close to Mir. The forces were powerful, taking out the _Adventurer's _shields with almost effortless precision. V had been forced to eject. He selected a nearby dimension with habitable conditions, and then performed a one-person microjump into it. Just his luck, he had ended up smack dab in the middle of a group of Dreadform in a forest clearing. And then half a minute later, he had encountered Dust and Fidget.

Now he was striding along about ten meters behind them. The tall guy with the hat had a very serious disposition and a slight tendency for brooding thoughts, so V had decided to call him Mr. Fantastic. Fidget (_the _Fidget) was fluttering at his left side. It looked like they were talking to each other. It might even be about him, because the Fidget was every now and then looking back in his direction. At one point, V thought he heard her say "Poor little guy…" or something similar.

V started moving closer to the others. He did not appreciate being talked about behind his back (or in front, in this case). As he approached, the Fidget flew up briefly into the trees, then returned a moment later to inform Mr. Fantastic that they were now very close to the settlement. The conversation between the two of them had now definitely moved on from V. Still, V decided to eavesdrop. That was always something he had been very good at doing.

"So, is the plan that we get to this place, ask directions to Aurora, and then head out again?" the Fidget asked Mr. Fantastic. She must have been referring to the nearby settlement. The hated tall guy agreed, mentioning again that he had ties in Aurora.

The party continued moving towards the tower of smoke in the distance. They had been travelling for a few minutes when V started to sense something. It was a sense of wrongness, a feeling of something being amiss in a dangerous way. He could also hear the sound of screaming in the distance, which was never a good sign. He was about to say something to Mr. Fantastic when he suddenly perked up and started running in the direction of the sounds. V mentally readied himself for combat and followed.

A man of middle age was standing and shivering with his back to a tree while looking at something in front of him, something that was scaring the daylight out of him. When V saw the creature, he immediately understood the man's reaction. The creature was no typical Dreadform. This thing, though vaguely humanoid, was much larger than the other enemies had been, nearly two and a half meters tall. It was skinless, and its surface was mottled and covered in eyes of various sizes and colors that looked every which way. It actually did have a face this time, but it was eyeless (perhaps the rest of its body compensated for this) and instead it was dominated by a jaw with thick lines of sharp teeth. Coming out of the thing's back were strange arms that looked like they were partly made of clockwork. There were four of these arms, and they sprouted from the thing's back like the legs of a spider. In addition, the creature also had two arms situated the usual way, from its upper torso, which were made of the same skinless mottled flesh, and ended in small appendages that looked more like long thorns than fingers.

V immediately recognized this creature. On Mir, this was called a Carrion Knight. It was an extremely dangerous type of Dreadform which was capable of making more Dreadfrom from the things that it killed. By himself, V definitely was not powerful enough to take this thing on. But fortunately he had Mr. Fantastic and the Fidget, so they might be able to make it through this.

V shouted at Mr. Fantastic: "Dust, we have to stop that thing! But you need to know…"

"I'm on it!" Mr. Fantastic shouted back at him, interrupting V's sentence. He was racing at the thing, Ahrah ready in his hand. V was too far behind. Mr. Fantastic and the Carrion Knight were going to engage before he had a chance to do anything.

Seeing that enemies were coming for it, the Carrion Knight suddenly grabbed the man in one of its arms, then plunged one of its back tentacles into the man's flesh. Before anyone could do anything at all, the man's body deflated like a balloon, his insides being sucked into the Carrion Knight. What remained of the man fell from the Carrion Knights' hands as a sack of skin and bones.

When the Fidget saw that happen, she stopped in her tracks and just stared blankly at the enemy ahead. "It sucked out his insides," she said quietly to herself.

Mr. Fantastic stopped running and looked back at her. "Fidget," he called to her.

"It sucked out his insides," she said again. "Oh God." Her eyes rolled up into her head, and then she fell to the ground. Mr. Fantastic ran over to her. "Fidget!"

Ahrah replied: "She has fainted. The sight of that creature was too much for her, it would seem. She will be fine, but her abilities are inaccessible until her subconscious recovers."

Mr. Fantastic cursed under his breath. "I can't use her moves. V, I hope you're ready for this!"

"I am!" V shouted, coming to a stop before Mr. Fantastic. V extended his left arm, and his energy blade Tempered Grace appeared in his hand. "Dust, this thing is more dangerous than you know. We need to…"

The Carrion Knight suddenly lunged at Mr. Fantastic. He attempted to parry, but the thing had all six of its upper limbs extended, and as the Carrion Knight latched onto him, the two of them were pushed backwards across the grass. V immediately came up and slashed at its back with Tempered Grace. The light sword made a few cuts into the thing's weak point, but even that vulnerable place was still heavily armored. The Carrion Knight withdrew one of its back-arms and tossed V off of it like he was a sack of fruit.

V crashed into a tree and fell to the ground, temporarily winded by the impact. A few seconds later, when he was able to pick himself up, he saw that Mr. Fantastic and the Carrion Knight were viscously fighting each other, and the Carrion Knight was winning. Mr. Fantastic was twirling Ahrah every which way in an attempt to keep the many arms of the creature away from him, but it was taking all of his effort, and the spider-like grip of the arms prevented him from getting distance. V had to do something now, or Mr. Fantastic would not be around much longer.

The Carrion Knight was too powerful for them. Even his rune attacks would not do much against that thing. They needed help. But from where, and who? V would have to summon something. There was no one around in this world who could help them right now, so help from another would have to do. V had never had much experience performing a summon, but now it seemed he was going to get some experience. As Mr. Fantastic was fighting madly for his life, V took a few seconds to ponder the options of what to bring forth. Then suddenly, he had it!

Tempered Grace appeared in his hand, and he used its tip to draw a circle in the air, the ring of which floated a meter above the ground and glowed in rainbow colors. Then within the circle, he drew the symbols for his summon idea, as best he could remember how the runes went. "I really hope this works," he mumbled to himself as he brought up his right hand and pushed into the ring.

The inside of the ring became a solid light, and there was a loud magical _whoosh_ which suddenly filled the clearing. Both Mr. Fantastic and the Carrion Knight temporarily looked over in V's direction to see what the noise was about. When it saw the ring of light, the Carrion Knight immediately released Mr. Fantastic, who dropped exhausted to the ground, and then it strode towards V. V looked back at the portal nervously. _C'mon, please respond, _he thought to himself. The Carrion Knight, being a creature of the Abyss, had a deep-seated hatred of anything with light magic, particularly anything from Mir. It ran at the portal with a hiss, all six of its upper appendages extended.

The creature leapt from the ground and lunged at the glowing ring like a jumping spider pouncing on prey. It was at the top of its arc when something suddenly burst through the portal like a missile and plowed straight into the Carrion Knight. Both objects crashed to the ground, the newcomer pinning the Carrion Knight down. As V looked upon the new arrival, he confirmed that his summon had been successful.

His summon looked like a large white horse with softly glowing fur, and a great horn shooting from its head. A pair of large wings sprouted from its back. Staring at it from across the clearing, Mr. Fantastic commented "Of my God, is that…"

"A unicorn," V finished.

The horn of the unicorn suddenly glowed with a powerful rainbow light, and from its tip came a straight beam of red light, which landed straight in the Carrion Knight's chest. The abyssal creature exploded into shadowy filaments which disintegrated into the air.

With that done, the unicorn then turned towards the tree where the unfortunate man had had his insides removed. The pile of skin and bones that had been sitting there a moment before had now become animated into a Dreadform. This was the reason Carrion Knights were so dangerous: they could turn their victims into more minions. The Carrion Knight might be gone now, but its influence was still here.

Fortunately, unicorns were an excellent solution for that. Its horn shot out a second red laser, which obliterated the new Dreadform as though it had never existed. Mr. Fantastic and V watched the demise of the last enemy, and Mr. Fantastic eventually said: "Well that took care of that. I didn't know you could summon unicorns."

"It's my first time doing it," said V. "I wasn't actually sure that I could, but I didn't really have much choice this time. Had to do something."

Mr. Fantastic nodded. He stood up, with effort. The fight had taken a lot out of him. He walked over to V, and V used some of the healing magic he had learned at Mir to take away the worst of Mr. Fantastic's wounds. He felt much better afterwards. With that done, the two of them went over to Fidget, who was still resting on the ground.

Her eyes slowly fluttered open. "What…what happened?"

"It's over," said Mr. Fantastic. "The Dreadform are gone now."

The eyes of the Fidget opened wider at that word, which caused her to remember more. "That thing…it sucked out his…"

"Insides," said Mr. Fantastic. "We know. It's taken care of. Don't worry."

Feeling a bit better, the Fidget sat up and then flew up into the air. "Is that a unicorn?" she replied after a moment.

"Yeah," said V. "That's what took care of the Dreadform."

The Fidget stared behind them at the unicorn with saucer eyes for a minute, babbling in her Fidgety way about how awesome it was that there was a unicorn and how wonderful it was and wondering if she could keep it as a pet. "Oh, and why is it destroying the forest?" she asked after some other things.

"What?" Mr. Fantastic responded.

"It's destroying the forest!" Fidget exclaimed while pointing. "Look!"

Mr. Fantastic and V turned around. Behind them, the forest was in flames. The unicorn was shooting light of various colors from its horn, which cut through the trees like a hot knife through butter, bringing the trees down and starting flames everywhere along the laser's path. At the same time, the unicorn excreted from its behind a stream of rainbows which expanded into a glowing mist, before igniting in the air and exploding with tremendous force. The unicorn seemed to be having great fun bringing destruction to the surrounding forest.

Mr. Fantastic whirled around and looked directly at V. "V, why is it destroying the forest?" he asked.

"I don't know!" V stammered. "I thought it just wanted to kill Dreadform. I have no idea what it thinks it's doing now!"

"Well, how do we make it stop?"

"Well…it's a unicorn," said V. "It doesn't exactly have an off switch."

Mr. Fantastic put a hand on V's shoulder. "V, you got us into this. You need to get us out."

V nodded. "Right." He summoned Tempered Grace and pointed it at the unicorn, who was currently in the process of farting magically on an innocent group of bushes. "Hey you!" V shouted. "Stop that immediately. It's…not nice."

The unicorn responded by firing a pink colored laser beam at V, which caught him in the chest and sent him shooting backwards into a tree. "I'm fine," V declared after picking himself back up again.

Suddenly, V heard the sounds of yelling. He could discern the word _fire_ in the sound, which quickly came to include many voices. _The settlement,_ he realized with horror. _The unicorn is destroying the forest right next to the settlement!_

Mr. Fantastic had come to the same conclusion. "The unicorn is trying to destroy the village!" he exclaimed.

"Why would it do that?" Fidget asked.

"I think it's because it doesn't like people," V stated. "A unicorn is a spirit of nature. And anything which endangers that nature, such as manmade settlements, it sees as an existential threat, which it must destroy."

"Why would you summon something that wants to kill people!" Mr. Fantastic shouted angrily.

"Well, I remembered that part after I summoned it," V responded. Under his hat, Mr. Fantastic shot him a venomous look. "_I'm sorry!_" V exclaimed.

Perhaps it didn't like people, but it seemed like the unicorn was having even more fun just destroying plantlife. He briefly wondered why a nature spirit would do that. Perhaps this one didn't actually care that much about people after all, and was just having fun wrecking shit in another world. It occurred to V that he really ought to be more careful the next time he summoned something.

Mr. Fantastic pulled out Ahrah. "We have to kill the unicorn," he declared. "We can't let it kill innocent people."

"No!" V shouted. "It's a unicorn!"

"A unicorn that is about to destroy a village!" said Mr. Fantastic. "We are not debating this. Help me deal with it. You summoned it, you need to help take care of it.

V looked at the ground and gave a big sigh. "Okay, fine!" He re-summoned Tempered Grace into his left hand. "Let's do this."

BOSS FIGHT: UNICORN

As the three of them raced through the woods, they could see in the distance a group of pagodas. They were indeed very close to the settlement. Too close. Fortunately, the unicorn was still in the woods, trying to rainbow-fart a large oak tree to death. Mr. Fantastic leapt from the ground and launched himself at the unicorn. The unicorn fired a red laser at him, which he deflected with Ahrah and sent into a nearby tree, causing the tree to explode. As he landed on the ground, he brought Ahrah vertically down into the unicorn's flank, opening a large gash which eschewed a rainbow-colored light that smelled like cookies and flowers. The unicorn roared in fury (V had not been aware that unicorns could roar. It seemed he had a lot to learn about unicorns) and then summoned from its nether regions a miasma of glittering rainbow haze, which enveloped Mr. Fantastic and caused him to stumble blindly around the clearing. He was waving his hands in front of himself and shouting "Oh god, where am I?" which was never a good sign.

Realizing that his partner was stunned by some powerful magic, V raced towards the unicorn and drew a neutralization glyph in the air with Tempered Grace, fortifying the symbol by making a circle around it. Then he pushed into it with his right hand, and the symbol shot into the unicorn along a cylinder of blue light. The unicorn gave a shrieking whinny and dropped its hind legs. With that, the rainbow mist faded, and Mr. Fantastic suddenly stopped his wandering, now free of the disorientation spell.

V was about to pat himself on the back and say _good job_ when the unicorn suddenly shot up in a fury and pounced on the poor Mirish Knight before he had time to react. Staring down at him, the unicorn charged up its horn with a bright red death laser, and for a moment V's short life flashed before his eyes. Then something shoved the unicorn off of him, some magic attack made of dozens of glowing magical orbs. The unicorn was driven backwards as the orbs cascaded into it, multiplying themselves with each impact.

"Get off of him, you rainbow-farting meanie!" shouted the Fidget. With the help of Mr. Fantastic's Dust Storm move, she summoned another flurry of magic orbs. The unicorn was again driven to its hind knees, and this time Mr. Fantastic took the opportunity to give a fatal strike. He was upon the unicorn before it had any chance to recover. Ahrah was a whirlwind in his hands, moving so quickly that it looked like a blur in the air. All Mr. Fantastic's energy was pent up. Each successive blow he landed into the unicorn was followed by another even stronger. The unicorn was beginning to disintegrate into glittering sparks of light. Small trees crashed down as they were caught up in Mr. Fantastic's fantastic attack. Rocks and bushes went up into a vortex of air.

Finally, Mr. Fantastic brought Ahrah down in a final swing that took off the unicorn's head, and with that the rest of its body dematerialized into a glittering dust which faded into the air.

Mr. Fantastic stood in place for a moment, while small rocks and other debris came crashing back down to earth. He looked over to his side, and noticed a little girl standing in the bushes and staring at him. Her eyes were wide, and both of her hands were across her mouth. "Oh, hey there," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Dust. Who are you?"

The girl back up cautiously. Then she shouted: "You killed a unicorn!"

"I did," said Mr. Fantastic. "It was threatening the village. It had to be done. It's over now. Don't worry."

The girl stifled back a shocked sob. "UNICORN KILLER!" she shouted, before running off, and shouting out to the settlement "He killed a unicorn! He killed a unicorn!"

"Great," said Mr. Fantastic.

And that was how Dust came to be known as the Terrible Horrible Unicorn Killer.


End file.
